


Sensitivity Training: The Entreaty

by Like_a_Hurricane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Nextwave (Comic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 18:53:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/776839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Like_a_Hurricane/pseuds/Like_a_Hurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a prompt: "SHIELD Sensitivity Training Videos" for Steve, from ellipsisobsessed on tumblr, which should’ve been absurd fluff, except Monica Rambeau took a break from <i>Nextwave</i> to provide her own personal “Welcome to the 21st Century” and I didn’t even try to stop her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sensitivity Training: The Entreaty

After the running-from-S.H.I.E.L.D.-and-into-Time-Square incident, Steve had already been shown, however briefly, some of the more drastic architectural and structural changes that New York had undergone during the time he’d spent on-ice. Then he’d let S.H.I.E.L.D. take him away again, into their facilities away from the noise of city traffic and so many, many people. Even the city’s smells had changed so drastically it left Steve dizzy to recall.

And now... now they told him a lot of other things had changed.

Decades of time had passed, and he’d missed all of it. He’d missed everything, it seemed like, and maybe he was still a little shell-shocked. He also desperately wanted to flee again, and he was starving.

A woman with dark skin and her shoulder-length hair arranged in an array of neat, finger-width braids, showed up not long after. She carried herself with authority, and an almost careless confidence, like she felt unstoppable simply because it was true, and from one hand she held the handles of a white plastic bag with pale styrofoam cartons inside, from which the smell of fresh hot food wafted. She looked amused and smiled a bit disconcertingly until Nick Fury introduced her. “This is Monica Rambeau. She’s been with S.H.I.E.L.D. ever since an incident not far off-shore from New Orleans gave her some unique capabilities. She’ll be helping you with some of what you’ve missed, over time.”

“You’re Captain America, then,” she mused, offering a hand. She seemed wary, and somehow a bit unimpressed, behind her air of mild amusement. “All-American dreamboat, circa 1940, and even blonder than advertised.”

“Steve Rogers,” he corrected gently. “I’ve apparently been out of service for a long, long while.” He sounded a little chagrinned.

“For a white man from 1940, you’re awful comfortable shaking my hand. You really must still be in shock,” she observed. “I’m a bit of an anthropologist in my spare time, when it comes to American culture. That’s why I’m here, Rogers.”

Steve hesitated. “I’m––not sure how to respond to that.”

“Let’s have lunch, then. This’ll be a lot for you to take in. You ever had Chinese?”

“A little. There were some interesting restaurants around in Brooklyn even back in the day,” Steve responded.

“Good. I’m still starting you off with the basic stuff, though: Lo mein for you, but the barbecued duck in here is all mine.” She lifted the bag a bit and beckoned with her free hand. “Come along.”

With real hesitation, Steve followed her out. He shot Fury a concerned look.

Fury nodded, stoic and vague and reassuring.

Steve followed the strange Monica Rambeau away down the hall.

 

~~

 

“You expect me to be unnerved by you,” Steve said, once they reached Central Park and started looking for a place to settle down and eat the take-out Monica carried.

“Yeah. There weren’t exactly many strong black women in important authority positions of a military nature back in your day, after all,” she shot back causally, with a slightly sarcastic smile. “I’m almost disappointed by your lack of horror.”

“I was taught to be polite, ma’am, to all women. Mostly, back then, girls weren’t interested in me no matter what their color. I just... never gave it much thought. I had other things to worry about, most of the time. I’ve never liked bullies, or people who seemed hateful for no reason, and people who had a tendency to insinuate things, or outright insult people, were never the sort I wanted to talk to, whether they were insulting women, negroes, or immigrants from wherever.” He shrugged. “I never met anyone I wanted to beat up. Only people who wanted to beat me up, so I’d try to fight back and usually get beat black and blue for it.”

Monica listened, shaking her head a little. “You’re so innocent it hurts, boy. Or you’re good at pretending everyone around you in your memories must’ve had better intentions than they did, which I think is more likely.”

“Well, all of my family died and I had to bury them. After that, all I wanted to do was join the service, because it seemed the only thing left for me: a family to join, something important to do with my life.” He shrugged a little. “I want to remember the dead well, for their bravery, their kindness, and all they gave to me.”

Nodding a little, Monica found a bench for them and retrieved a paper carton of chicken lo mein, opening it for him as he sat down. “Fork or chopsticks?”

“Uh... fork?” He took the individually-wrapped plastic cutlery and the carton both when she proffered them, and started eating as she opened a styrofoam box full of roasted duck and rice, which she ate with savor, using wooden chopsticks without any apparent effort.

“Well, if I can believe you’re somehow not a product of your time in the racism department, there’s still my gender to contend with a bit, and that’s the other part of why it’s me having this talk with you.” She smiled thinly. “I don’t hold back.”

Steve’s brow furrowed, but he could think of nothing to say to that, so only nodded a bit hesitantly.

“Times have changed, as you can see.” She gestured around them at the park, and the city vast and looming all around it. “Let’s start with the history, it’s likely where you’ll be more interested anyhow. So the war you got all lost in was one we won, and man we still couldn’t be more proud of stomping Hitler into the dust. There was a lot that came out toward the end of the war, and after, that wasn’t pretty, though.” She frowned, looking at him sadly, as if from a great distance. There was something tragic about having to explain to any adult just what the human race was capable of, particularly when it was clear that the adult in question had a heart, and didn’t know about these horrors yet. “There were camps, you see. You saw one or two, where they kept the Jews.”

The super-soldier nodded soberly. “Yes. They were––they were kept like animals, for no reason.”

“There were reasons, but all of them were terrible,” Monica said. “No one does anything so organized and deliberate as all that without a lot of reasons they believe in. That’s what made those men monstrous. It was Jews, and homosexuals, gypsies, and anyone else ‘impure’ by similar standards.”

“Oh,” Steve said. “I only knew about––well-”

“You saw how they were kept. You even saw one of the graves, according to reports,” she interrupted lightly. “You don’t know how much worse it got.”

Steve swallowed. “And it did? Get worse.”

She nodded. “The details aren’t exactly lunch conversation. They’re horrors, and some of the most callous and heartless humanity has ever committed.”

“Surely it’s a lack of humanity that did it?”

“No. Every killer among them was more human than you or me, down to their blood and their bones, Captain Rogers,” Monica said softly. “Humanity isn’t always good. Good is not always human. Get that straight, to start.”

Reluctantly, Steve nodded.

“Israel exists now. That’s because of the war. They displaced people who’d been living in and around that strip of promised land around Jerusalem to do it, though: people who’d been living there for hundreds of years, many generations. And culturally, the various peoples all around that region of the world weren’t happy with that idea for a lot of reasons, many valid, some not. America and Europe, after World War II, stood with Israel. And Israel can handle itself pretty well militarily, these days. A bit too well, maybe. It’s complicated.” She shot him a look. “What do you think of that?”

Steve hesitated. “I... I don’t know what to think. I would need to see more about it, for this to really sink in.”

“Do that. It’s something you should know about, and think about.” She shook her head. “There’s a lot of history that if you learn the textbook versions of, you’ll feel torn. I want you to know that. When you fought for this country, you fought for a lot of things that were there, and a lot of things that weren’t, and maybe you didn’t know about a lot of them, maybe you knew but didn’t recognize their darker aspects, and maybe you just can’t believe in them even if you did see those things at their worst. I think that’s most likely, looking at you while you’re looking at me: you love so many memories, that it’s going to be hard to face what history and time has left of them, and shown of their worst selves, their worst beliefs. We’ve fought other wars since yours, and we started a number of ‘em, and they were wars of ideas we didn’t understand, but fought anyway convinced that we knew best. We’re still fighting a couple of those. Don’t go defending them until you look close at what’s driving them, Cap, or I’ll have no respect for you at all, and you’ll become the sort of ‘bully’ you’ve never wanted to be without even noticing. I’m letting you know this because those bullies have made life difficult for my family, my friends, and my lovers, for my entire life. I don’t take shit from any of them, but it’s exhausting having to face them down, and their assumptions, all the time, everywhere I go. If you think you can do that without help, based on the world you knew before, I’ll leave you to someone else who can give you some neat, tidy history lessons from some books. And I’ll keep an eye on you, and punch you in the face within a week for being a twat because you’re from the 40’s, and if I’d been around in the 40’s, what do you think most of the people you’d known would’ve thought of me, or said about me behind my back, wherever I went?” She looked him dead in the eye then. “I’m a woman. I’m black. I’ve kissed other women and loved one or two of them; I’ve been a lover to them. One of the best heroes I’ve ever worked with got married to the man of his dreams last month, and I love them both like my brothers. I have been in law enforcement, and these days I work with S.H.I.E.L.D. and on my own public works projects back in New Orleans and other places that need rebuilding lately. I’ve never been married, but I’ve had several lovers over the years. I’m not seeing anyone now, and I don’t think you’re all that hot stuff even though you’ve got a very cute butt.” She smiled challengingly. “I’m also a good woman who saves lives and prevents innocent people getting hurt. I’ve never hurt anyone who didn’t try to hurt me, or someone else first, and I’ve never coerced anyone into something they didn’t want to be involved in, when it comes to love and loyalty and sex. Now, keeping all that in mind, what would everyone you’d ever known before today think of me?”

Steve swallowed thickly, trying not to choke on an insufficiently-chewed mouthful of noodles. “Uhm,” he all but squeaked.

Monica took a bite of duck, still looking amused, but also sharp and wary. “Take your time, sweetheart.”

For a few long minutes, Steve was very quiet, poking at his food and not daring to look up from the noodles he twirled around with his fork. “I think you’re a good person, from what I’ve seen, and you scare me a little.”

“Why do I scare you?”

“Because I’m––because I know what people would think––would’ve thought––before now? I don’t know what the world thinks of you now, but you said there are still bullies, which means some things still haven’t changed that maybe should. But you’re not scared of them, or of me, and you know what I’m thinking, so things must have also still gotten better, I think.” He looked uncomfortable, and his face was bright red. “I’ve also never, uh, thought much about some things you mentioned––men and women and that sort of...” He shrugged and gestured vaguely with his fork.

“Sex,” Monica said.

“That.”

“Particularly not between just a man and a woman.”

His blush deepened. “How is that––how is that a thing? Isn’t sex sort of-” He cut off. “Not that I _know_ , I mean-”

Monica’s eyebrows raised. “My god, you’re a virgin. Wow.” Her eyes flicked up and down his body briefly. “Well damn.”

“How?” Steve’s voice cracked a little. “How are we discussing this?”

“Because people were really fucked up after the war you were in, and needed to learn to talk about things that nobody considered it proper to talk about, or that they were afraid or embarrassed to talk about,” Monica explained. “They came up with psychotherapy because of a slightly absurd but brilliant little bastard called Freud, who was obsessed with sex and had a lot of theories about it that were wrong and frankly a bit bonkers, but he got people talking about it more. They talked about other things to start, usually, but humans are fixated on sex, as a species. Some aren’t, because it really doesn’t interest them, but I don’t think you’d be squirming so uncomfortably right now if you hadn’t ever really thought about wanting to experience it.” Her expression softened a little, and she elbowed him lightly. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, it’s nothing bad. There’s nothing wrong with it, or with thinking about it.”

“That’s––not what anyone has really ever suggested to me before.”

“Yeah. The 40’s were screwed up that way. So were the 50’s. And the 60’s and 70’s were very strange, and the 80’s and 90’s reacted against a lot of it, and now here we are. Things still are screwed up, really, because so many people still believe it’s dirty, that it’s wrong, that it’s gross and people who like it are shameless and sinful and deserve only punishment and censure. There are plenty of people who still believe that.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand them, though. Sex, when it involves willing adults, is about being close, and making each other feel good, and sometimes it can be dirty, sometimes adding something that’s taboo or a little uncomfortable, or a bit weird, can add something to the experience and make some of it more intense, but when it comes down to it, even then, sex is still two people (or more) who are sharing closeness, trust, acceptance, and pleasure. Those are the best things humans can offer each other, and I can’t respect anyone who would demonize love and affection just because they’re afraid of it, or think their supposedly good and merciful god they love to harp on about must somehow really have something against it. The main thing that’s changed a bit, these days, for the better, is that there are a now more people who aren’t afraid of what they want. I can be embarrassed by it sometimes, in certain situations, because I can still blush, but it’s not sin, to me. It’s only sin if someone is being hurt by it, or coerced or manipulated against their will. Then it’s hurt, and that sort of hurt, that sort of disrespect and cruelty, is never sexy to me, and never will be.”

Steve was still staring at her with a mixture of confusion, awe, and mild horror. “I’m––still really embarrassed by this entire discussion.”

“You probably feel like the rug’s been pulled out from under all of your expectations, so that’s to be expected. Any questions?”

The super-soldier made discomfited noise.

“Look, I’m not embarrassed by this, and I’m not going to laugh at you. I’m not going to make fun of you, and I’m not out to hurt you. I have no interest in you sexually, either. You’re really just not my type.”

“You say that, but you also said something about my butt.”

“Yeah. Your butt is amazing, and I will not lie about that, honey. That said, I’m not out to tap that.” Seeing his mild confusion, she further explained, “I’m not otherwise attracted to you, because your expressions remind me of a kid cousin of mine, you’re all wide-eyed and innocent and I prefer my partners with a bit of experience, and frankly you’re so white-bread it’s almost ridiculous.” Recalling the Captain America shield she’d seen in the old photos, she thought, _maybe Wonder-bread would suit better, even. He is the embodiment of wonder-bread: white, not exactly flavorful in the experience department to the point of not even qualifying as vanilla, supposedly chock full of vitamins, and the epitome of American advertising in action from a certain era._ She didn’t laugh. She promised she wouldn’t. But it was a near thing.

Steve frowned a little. “I’m––not sure how to take that.”

“Well, how’d you feel if a guy said that to you?”

“I’d feel really uncomfortable, actually, and a bit insulted maybe.”

“Why uncomfortable?”

“Because it would suggest a man had been thinking about me in terms of––well, sexual attraction? It’s not something I’m used to having to factor in ever. It’s not anything I ever had to think about at all, even.”

“Wow, that’s kinda funny. You got beat up all the time, were a skinny kid with a pretty mouth and no one ever called you a faggot or tried to treat you like one?” she asked lightly.

Steve’s expression darkened. “That’s––that’s different.”

“No, honey, it’s not. That was them treating you like a creature they’d consider sexual in an abusable fashion. Looking at history and studies of human behavior done since then, you can count yourself lucky if you just got called names a few times over the years, and not ‘treated like one’ as such. Guess what that might involve.”

The super-soldier swallowed thickly. “It––I was aware. It didn’t happen to me, but Bucky worried about it. He told me once, when we were both a bit drunk, about one time he was afraid he’d come too late to stop––something like that. It wasn’t, but he’d somehow thought it was. It had never occurred to me before that, that anyone might do that sort of thing. I thought it was just something that bullying men thought women were for, same as they thought someone like me was for kicking around to make themselves feel better, and in both cases they couldn’t be more wrong. It was strange, that he thought they would––do that to me.”

“Now imagine someone who really thought of other men that way. Just imagine, for a moment, that being attracted to someone, and wanting to love them, made you even more of a target,” Monica said softly. “Because a man happened to want another man, there would be some men who would presume that meant they could use him, defile and break him, for being in love with the wrong person. Because that love was considered weird, and immoral, and wrong.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’ve been a soldier, and you’ve been a weak man, and you’ve been a super-hero, and I don’t want you to assume that men who look at you, and think you’re beautiful, and maybe offer to buy you a drink sometime, or ask you out for coffee, are offering you any insult, or looking to hurt you somehow. They’ll look at you and see someone beautiful they might want to get close to, if maybe you’re interested in letting them. And you should know that before I let you wander the streets of New York on your own, blondie-locks.” She shot him a serious look. “You want to be someone good, who isn’t a bully and isn’t a jerk, then you need to know what people expect you to do because you’re the hero of a war that made America into one of the world’s biggest, most arrogant bullies. And I can hope you’re better than what they imagine ‘good christian American white men’ are supposed to be like, when they talk to people like me, and the people like many of those I consider my friends.”

Steve blinked a few times, setting his now-empty take-out carton between them, back in the plastic bag from whence it’d emerged earlier, along with the box Monica had emptied of all duck-and-rice contents. “This is––this is the strangest conversation I have ever had in my life, even counting ones I’d had before I couldn’t get drunk anymore.”

“You need it, though. This world is even weirder than me, I promise.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“I’m not here to comfort you, much. I’m here to offer you a dose of reality as it is now. Look around for a while. There’s two girls holding hands over there, dressed in clothes that you’re––yeah, you look shocked, that’s funny––but really look at them. They’re young, and they’re walking in the sun not afraid of themselves or the world around them for a while, and they’re maybe a little in love. I think they’re beautiful, just for that, but there are still people who will call them sluts, who would suggest that any number of bad things happening to them would be justifiable because they aren’t ashamed of what they’re doing, and they’re appealing to a certain sort of male gaze on an incidental, unrelated level. How dare they be pretty, and in plain sight, and not expect to be punished?”

Steve shot her a look and found her with her arms crossed over her chest, frowning deeply, and looking at something horizon-ward. He said, “You said that you still run into––bullying sort of people.”

“I’m paraphrasing them. They’re everywhere. The only way to combat them is to be better than them, to be better than they can argue against, but they will argue the most ridiculous notions sometimes, and it just makes me feel so tired then, so frustrated, that I want to lash out because it feels like it’s all I have left that might shut them up for at least a moment, and sometimes I do, usually with words because I’m good at them, but sometimes they make me so mad I can’t think of the words anymore. They make me so angry, because they’re so blind, and so stupidly cruel, and it would be so easy, with my powers, to make them cease to exist all at once, but I don’t.” She sighed heavily. “It’s exhausting, being a good person. There’s so much that people assume based on ideals from the time you’ve lived in and before it––stupid little lies and superstitious phobias and holier-than-thou righteousness in a billion shades of shame––and if I can’t remember the counter-argument for every single one, they always tell me that nothing I say matters any longer, just because they can feel smugly right that I don’t have the perfect response to one single little absurd assertion that they do cling to. That’s the world I’ve had to grow up in, that I’m a hero in, and even other women hate me sometimes, because the things they’ve been taught make them see me as a bitch, as uppity, as too pushy, or as a whore, because I’m a human being and a woman and I love some people very much, and don’t take any shit even from them, let alone anyone else. And maybe I am a bit of a bitch, but that should be respected, the same way a hero who looks more like you can be respected when he’s a bit of a bastard. I’m trying to make this world a better place, and I’d like you to be something more than a relic of a time before I could safely exist and be myself in public, because people will want you to be the sort of hero who doesn’t like faggots, who thinks women like me should be quieter and less disrespectful, who thinks that America is the glory of the 1940’s and that we should all cling to that older, more shame-filled morality scheme, or something more like it.”

“I do recall the Bible having a lot to say about sex,” Steve started, and smiled a little when she shot him a glare, “but I didn’t like hearing about any of it, because it was embarrassing. I didn’t want to hear what the preachers had to say about it, when I was a kid and mom still took me to church sometimes. He made me feel bad for listening, so I tuned most of it out, so I wouldn’t feel bad. So I don’t remember those parts, really. I remember the stories about love, and mercy, and the good Samaritan, and the rest. I always meant, a little guiltily, to get around to reading the whole book when I grew up, but it wasn’t as easy to get into as a lot of novels, so I would go to services that sounded interesting, and I’d think about them, and then try another church in another town the next week, where I’d get rejected for the service too, and so none of those religions were really mine. I’m still a christian, but––I think I’m not a very normal one. I believe in the best of what I’ve heard, and that’s all been about mercy and being good to other people, which is probably a good thing to relate to god. The rest isn’t worth it, to me. Not when the boys who listened to all of it so eagerly were still happy to knock me down and tease my sisters until they cried. I tried to get in fights over that and my mother scolded me about it, and said I should’ve gone for help instead, for my sisters, or just stood my ground for just myself. So I did that, and I got beat up a bit, but never as bad. Somehow they were more afraid to hurt me worse when I stood my ground and refused to run from them, refused to be scared, when it was _only_ me. They liked people better scared, I worked out.” He looked at his own hands thoughtfully. “I don’t like it when people are scared of me. I like that you aren’t, and probably never will be scared of me. I like that you’re scary because you don’t do it to be mean. You do it because you’re standing your ground and you know that frightens people, but it’s the best way to deal with the sort of bullies you’re most against.”

Monica examined his expression for a long moment, then smiled a little. “You’re too kind to be a real person, you know. If I hadn’t seen footage of you kicking Nazis in the face, I’d think you were all sweetness and light, and would have to kill you because I’d suspect you were planted here by aliens looking to take over the world.”

Steve ran a hand through his hair. “Most of that footage was staged, really.”

“I know, but I’ve also read your mission reports. You always had a count of killed and injured at the end, because you noticed them. You regretted them after, but not enough to be afraid to enumerate them.”

“It would be disrespectful otherwise; no one else could keep count, but after the serum I––always noticed more, and quicker, about my surroundings.”

Monica nodded. “You know what it’s like to be mad, and to enjoy hurting someone, though.”

He nodded, a bit reluctantly. “I don’t like it. I’m good at hurting people, and I can’t help but like doing things that I’m good at, but I’m also good at doing less damage even if it’s not the easiest or most efficient way to take down an enemy, and that’s what I prefer.”

“Captain Zen Wonder-bread,” Monica mused.

“What?”

“Pop culture references are a whole ‘nother series of lessons entirely, and ones I don’t have nearly enough free time for. Don’t worry about it.” She smiled a little waving off his look of confusion.

“I’m going to be overwhelmed a lot, aren’t I?”

“Yep.”

“And embarrassed by things that used to be inappropriate but now aren’t?”

“Yes, and the reverse, too. The word ‘boner’ isn’t in nearly such common usage anymore, incidentally, and refers just to the sexual connotations.”

Steve blushed again, and heard her giggle when she noticed. “You’re enjoying my discomfort.”

“I’m an older sister. Teasing boys is what I’ve always been good at. I like making them squirm because they’re embarrassed, because it’s fun, and because they fuss, and because I can.”

“And you think we deserve it.”

“Yep. Girls are supposed to be ashamed instead, which isn’t fair, so I make sure you’re all more embarrassed until that maybe changes a little, in more parts of the world.”

Steve laughed a bit. “Fair enough, I guess.”

She shot him a slightly shrewd look. “Really?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I had an older sister.”

Monica smiled a little. “She teased you a lot?”

Again, he nodded.

The super-heroine did too, as though logging that away for later.

“Did Fury really choose you for this?”

“Why, because we’re both black?”

“Well––uh––”

“I volunteered. And he knew better than to argue. For reference, people will get offended by that sort of association. Fury and I know each other well because I’ve saved his ass a couple of times, and not because he was black like me. I did it because he needed savin’. As a result, and because he’s high-up in S.H.I.E.L.D., his gratitude is a useful thing to have sometimes.”

Steve nodded. “Okay. I’ll, uhm, work on that.”

“See that you do. I’ll come up with some sit-coms for you to watch that might help, and I’ll find a few critiques of them to balance it out. You haven’t watched any TV yet, have you?”

“Any what?”

Monica whistled. “Wow.”

“This makes me nervous.”  
“It should.” She sighed. “You’re gonna be a lot of work, getting you comfortable and mostly-functional in modern-day New York.” She then frowned a little. “Maybe you wanna try a smaller town?”

Steve shook his head. “I’m from Brooklyn. That hasn’t changed.”

Monica smiled a little. “Alright, then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now where do you want to start next?”

“I’m... still interested in the history.”

She nodded. “There’s a couple museums we can hit, to start.”

“I’m not sure what else I might need to know.”

“Television. Video games. Culture wars.”

“Culture-wars?”

“Starting with the 60’s. Introducing you to the events of the 60’s will be a fun day or two, let me tell you,” she muttered, smiling wide and a bit wicked.

Steve’s brow furrowed. “That’s... disconcerting.”

“Boy, you don’t know the half of it yet,” Monica promised. She gathered up the bag of empty take-out containers and tied it off, standing and vaporizing it with a flash of power. “Well, we got a few more hours if you’re not scared off, yet.”

Steve stared at her. She was everything he’d been warned to keep away from as a boy, everything that should make him feel uncomfortable and maybe ashamed for liking how smart and witty and sharp she was. She was everything that would have terrified his parents if they’d known she might exist one day. He liked her, though, and while she was scary, the rest of the dramatically-changed city around her seemed less scary, with her willing to walk with him through the too-different streets for a while. “I’d be honored, ma’am,” he said, rising to his feet. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Oh, it’s trouble, but it’s fun and interesting trouble so far.” She shrugged. “You never liked boys though? Not even cute ones in uniform who looked at you like you were a god among men?”

Steve felt that acute discomfort again. “They were like little brothers.”

“But others?”

“I didn’t see them that way, really.”

“Can I ask you about Peggy at all?”

He hesitated more visibly then, feeling suddenly very cold. “Not today. Not until I’ve had time to think about––about time that’s passed. It still feels like that was yesterday, to me. It’s––I’m not ready to think about that. Not yet.”

Monica nodded. “Okay.” She took his hand briefly, and squeezed. “You’re doing better than I expected so far anyway, soldier.” Then she let him go. “Come along, I’m gonna show you some things that’ll scandalize you on the way to the museum.”

“What sort of things?” Steve asked tentatively.

“Street performers, if I can find any. They should be out and about around now.”

“I’ve been around performers.”

“Not like your city’s cowboy.”

“This is New York.”

“Yep.”

“A cowboy?”  
“You’ll see.” She offered him a grin. “Unless you’re scared. Feel free to flee, if you like. I might even chase you.”

“I don’t run,” he said, and followed when she started away down the path.


End file.
